


I've Not Learned How To Draw

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Art, Art History, Artists, Bae Jinyoung-centric, Business, Cigars, Classics, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, House Party, Humor, Im Jaebum | JB-Centric, M/M, Mates, Money, Painting, Party, Partying, Platonic Relationships, Rain, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25971148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: Jinyoung hangs out at Jaebum's art studios where the knife-painting professional tries to teach Jinyoung how to paint. Later that evening, they attend a evening out - "As you have to sound like a toff." Jaebum added - for the Seoul artist and art dealing world with a consequence bad for Jaebum but hilarious for Jinyoung
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Park Jinyoung
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	I've Not Learned How To Draw

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this :) It's based on two things partly, that just started playing in my head earlier; the Artists Ball/Evening was based on the Paris Evening from The Danish Girl, and, the scene at the end is based on the Christmas in the film My Cousin Rachel, where Rachel Weiss and Sam Claflin are walking along together in the snow. Both original scenes are romantic and/or sad, so, it's been a bit different, my take on them :)

Jinyoung chuckled softly, looking at the hopeless smear of paint he had just put across Jaebum's fomerly clean canvas. "Uh...that's how I see you start it right?"

"I would have done it a couple of inches up, but, that's alright." Jaebum answered. He took the blade smeared with cool and faint paint - the colour of a frozen lake - from Jinyoung carefully. 

"That was meant to be a face, I know..." Jaebum told Jinyoung. "But, now, it can be the arm of a girl...with her elbows on a table in the window of a hipster - all that shit - style shop...hands clasped together in the air...with her head leaning against them...and her gazing intently into whoever is looking at this painting..."

Jinyoung burst out laughing. "You are fucking wicked." He grinned, bumping his shoulder up against Jaebum's. Within twenty minutes, there was a Anglo-Saxon girl with a tapered, fine-boned face, circular-lensed glasses with red hair falling loosely over one side of her neck and shoulders with freckles and a full mouth and dark eyes with thick straight eyebrows gazing at the viewer of the painting in a red and white striped top with a crew neck. The painting was only from the girl's waist up. The rest of the cafe scene - the window, and the background - hadn't been painted in yet.

Jinyoung was stunned at Jaebum's articulate and effortless skill as he made his cock-up of a portrait much better than it initally was.

"Remember, I've been doing this since I was fifteen and my Dad does painting himself, too." Jaebum commented to Jinyoung. "You're allowed to fuck up a bit; it's a learning process."

"I've not learned how to draw." Jinyoung said, crossing his arms. "And I don't think I'll get the hang of it..."

Both he and Jaebum laughed.

"Well, how about you tell me what we need in the background?" Jaebum remarked. "That place where you get your coffee every morning - what does that look like inside?"

Jinyoung rubbed the back of his neck. "French...French-y style...ish, I guess?" He said after a few long moments of thought. "I don't know how to describe it. Old. Really old. Older than Nanna old, like...early 1900's or something?"

Jaebum nodded thoughtfully. "Big high ceilings - sixteen, eighteen foot ceilings - paint that's attractively wearing away, a few marks on the ceiling from old water-pipe leaks in the 60's and 80's and even more recently. Art Deco paneling from a probable renovation in the late twenties, early thirties, but, not American Art Deco - which is just fucking disgusting - Western European Art Deco, Scandinavian Art Deco, right? Sort of pale mint green, pale rose-gold, white-wash cream sort of colours, polished cedar floorboards, cobwebs, pot-plants, and, then, old-world style modern furniture, a bit like that right?" He put to Jinyoung, taking in what he thought the cafe Jinyoung got his coffee each morning would look like giving what Jinyoung had said.

Jinyoung's eyes were wide. "Have you been there?" He asked.

They burst out laughing again.

"How the fuck did you get that?!" Jinyoung exclaimed, staring at Jaebum in awe. "Are you fucking psyhic or something?"

Jaebum just grinned. "If they're French-style and old, they're always like that." He pointed a knife-painting blade in Jinyoung's direction in gesture, before, turning back to his canvas. "I reckon I could have it done by tonight..."

"You want me to bugger off, then?" Jinyoung asked, gesturing to the door to Jaebum's studio behind him.

"No, no, you're right." Jaebum answered dismissevly. He considered the canvas. "What time are we at?" He turned and asked Jinyoung.

Jinyoung checked his phone. "Seven minutes past three." He said.

Jaebum nodded. "I'll...do this." He gestured to the canvas. "Put on the telly, put your feet up, I think there's something wihtout a coat of mould or seven years out of date in the fridge and pantry."

Jinyoung laughed. "You're so much like your Dad." He told Jaebum. "Seriously, it's more like I'm speaking to your Dad than you sometimes...you're exactly the same..."

"Sometimes." Jaebum granted. Not all sons nessecarily had good relationships with their Mother's and Father's. Such the case with Jaebum, which, in Jinyoung's eyes, was unfortunate. "Go and do your own thing, I'll be around soon."

"I've just found out what it's like to be your wife." Jinyoung joked, crossing his arms.

"What?" Jaebum's lips barely moved, looking at him expressionlessly.

"You know." Jinyoung grinned. "Oh, not a problem dear," He mimicked Jaebum, or, rather, Jaebum's Father. "You keep yourself company, I'll work until half-past Midnight and then just sleep on the couch because I don't want to wake you up but then you'll take it the wrong way in the morning."

Jinyoung hadn't meant to barb Jaebum, but, he had.

"Fuck off." Jaebum pointed the painting blade to the door of his studio, and, the growl that etched up his tone, making him sound animalistic and vicious made Jinyoung frightened.

"Jaebum, I -" Jinyoung started, but, he didn't go through with it due to the look in Jaebum's eyes.

All in all, one reference to his Father had been enough. A second hit had caused the damage.

Jinyoung retreated.

Just as he collected his coat from the stand in the hallway, the front door opened, and, before it, stood one of Jaebum's personal friends and art dealers, a man in his mid-thirties and Danish; he was large in the Germanic way, all steel and muscle and strength, no fat, with long-fingered strong hands with dense yellow hair on the backs of his hands and arms with a tapered face, hooded green-grey eyes, naturally thin eyebrows, oiled and combed-back hair, beautiful tailoring, beautiful shoes, and, a scar over his upper lip and just beneath his left eye from where - apparently - he had fallen off a motorcycle due to black ice on a mountain and unkempt road in North Wales in the UK when he was thirty and had injured himself. 

"Harold." Jinyoung greeted. Harold wasn't actually the man's name. His real name was Henreich...and then some unintelligable matter of letters that Jinyoung couldn't work with, even thought, the much more capable Jaebum had mastered it. So, they called him Harold, especially when the British had released a period drama about one of the early Kings that had been highly-grossed in East-Asia, and, both Jinyoung and Jaebum had said that Heinrich looked like King Harold in the film.

"I don't think he wants you to go." Harold remarked to Jinyoung in English. "But, between the two of us..." He took off his hat and it sat loosely in his hand by his chest. "Shouldn't you know better?"

Jinyoung couldn't pretend he wasn't just a little bit offended by that, but, all in all, he had to correctly concede that Harold was right.

"Go back in, and, things will be alright, you'll find." Harold nodded his head. Despite the fact he was a good ten years older than Jaebum and Jinyoung and was eons older in maturity than the two of them, Jinyoung appreciated his handsome appearence.

Jinyoung did as Harold said.

At about half-eight, the two of them in the sitting room, Harold having shifted around and brought out Jaebum's alcohol like it was his own house and had spend hours in conversation with Jinyoung about the climate of Western Europe and the lunacy, chaos, money, disaster, and, humor it gave, Jaebum came downstairs from his studio, the sleeves of his shrit rolled up around his elbows, and paint covering his hands that he was rubbing off with already paint-stained bit of cloth.

"How many more since this afternoon?" Harold asked, only Jaebum understanding in turn what he was asking.

"Six." Jaebum answered.

"Show me." Harold got up, and, followed Jaebum upstairs. 

A few minutes later, Jaebum came downstairs by himself.

"Sorry for growling at you." Jaebum mumured, his hand shifting through Jinyoung's hair for a moment as he walked past down the hall.

Jinyoung smiled after him. "Everyone knows you're a cranky prick, don't worry about it." Jinyoung called after Jaebum. 

Upstairs, a soft-jazz record began to play on the old gramophone that was upstairs in Jaebum's studio. Jinyoung knew not to press on it, but, butween his Father, Harold, and, his job, Jaebum had developed quite a affection for antiques. The old gramophone was one of them. And, when scarily thin women used to flood into Jaebum's studio so he could paint them, that gramophone used to always have a record spinning on it's surface. It was a English-language record, so, Jinyoung couldn't indentify it, but, it sounded nice enough.

"Jinyoung?"

Jinyoung barely had time to look around before Jaebum was draping a ironed and laundered black suit into his arms.

"Get dressed, we're going out, or, rather, I'm attending a evening - as you have to word it even though you sound like a toff - with Harold and as a form of apology I'm having you as a guest, understood?" Jaebum said simply. Jinyoung looked at Jaebum. Jaebum was already dressed a dark navy three-piece suit with a white shirt. He looked very good in it, but, there was still something off about his demeanour.

"What?" Jinyoung grasped at the suit in the hanging racks and tried not to crease them as he got up gingerly. "What do you mean?"

"It's like a party for painters at the place of one of Harold's mates but there isn't any drugs, gay hipsters with mental health issues, women in trousers, men with long hair or general clowns." Jaebum explained. "It's like the Scandinavian Art Scene in the 1920's; how they still want it to be to this day."

"Sounds like shit." Jinyoung thought aloud.

"Makes me a lot of fucking money, so, shut up and behave." Jaebum scowled. It put Jinyoung back in his place. His eyes flashed. "And you're always complaining about been single so you might meet someone that isn't a whore and isn't interested in spending all your money."

Twenty minutes later, and courtesy of Harold in his luxury Bently Continental, they arrived at the Scandinavian Art-Deco style home of a business friend of Harold's and Jaebum's. One side of the huge home was covered in ivy moon, and, the whole property was a statement to architecture of that Scandinavian Ethnic Style. The sandstone stone steps outside were waited on by staff both male and female, and, indoors, with the ceilings eighteen feet high and white-washed with stained-glass hanging lights and ethnic-patterns painting on the ceiling skirting. The walls were covered with paneled wood and wallpaper, and, even though the sight was familiar to Jaebum and Harold, Jinyoung felt like he was playing a game, some sort of dream, in someone elses clothes, in someone elses car, in someone elses company, in someone elses body, at someone elses evening.

It didn't feel quite real.

Jinyoung's eyes were wide as Jaebum and Harold guided him up the hallway and into a ballrom with two winding staircases in the circular shaped space, dripping with chandeliers, gold painted walls, murals, statues, antique furniture, expensive vases, marble decoration, and, at least a hundred people in old-world style clothes with crystal glasses of wine, champagne and whiskey. 

"Fucking hell." Jinyoung breathed.

"Shut up." Jaebum and Harold hissed at him.

A couple of hours passed by. Jinyoung found out that some of the paintings on the walls were original Gustav Klimts, and, then, some of the murals on the walls were paintings of his, blown up big. Jinyoung got a little bit drunk but not shitfaced, and, both he and Jaebum got a couple of dances with a couple of different girls. To the unharmful hilarity of others and a disconcerted expression on the face of Harold, Jinyoung and Jaebum had a waltz together for one song played by the jazz band, and, Jaebum did not drop Jinyoung and crack his skull open on the marble floor like he expected.

"Whose the black guy that..." Jinyoung gestured over to the tall and relitavely well-built black man talking somewhat agressively to Jaebum, his thick and dark dreadlocks tied back in a ponytail at the bash of his neck and spilling down his back a little while later. He was dressed in a oat-meal toned linen suit, and, Jinyoung thought how easily that would show up blood.

"He won't be happy until he has the cheque registered and then deposited at the bank." Harold commented to Jinyoung about Jaebum. "I told him not to deal with French; they are traitorous cunts. The only thing about them that ever did any good was the Resistance movement in the second world war." A gleam of pride came into Harold's eyes. "Killed those fucking Nazi's." He murmured softly in praise to those men and women who had risked their lives in occupied France. Half in his thoughts, he raised his glass of wine in a toast to them, now all dead. "Jean-Claude said he'd hang some of Jaebum's material, have him as the first Oriental artist shown to the more particular portrait market of his stomping ground near the Eiffel." Harold told Jinyoung. "But French pigs are French pigs." Harold winked shallowly. "You should enjoy your night." He advised to Jinyoung. "I'll look after your friend...whose old enough to know better in this situation."

Jinyoung took Harold's advice. Leaving Jaebum to fight with the Franca-African man, he walked outside into the courtyard garden, and, even though it was a pretty sight to be hold - champagne, wine and whiskey in crystal tumblers, bottles and glasses, pretty women in old-world style even clothes with beautiful hair and make-up and all the men look chilvarous and attentive and sweet, some of them not having quite grown old enough - just a matter of nature - to look proper in such a good suit - it genuinely only kept Jinyoung's attention briefly.

He ended up deciding to leave early. He caught Harold's eyes on the way out, still in the same spot with his glass of incredibly-slowly vanishing whiskey, and, Harold nodded to him. Jinyoung hadn't caught any sight of Jaebum or the man he was fighting with since.

As Jinyoung came out into the entrance hall, one of the maids - so pretty in her claf-length black dress with the long sleeves, her bobbed hair, her little red mouth and big dark eyes - ran and collected him his coat. It was pouring rain outside, and, everyone was starting to come indoors from the courtyard garden. "No, sir, we can call you a cab." The maid caught at his arm with her little hands as Jinyoung went to leave.

"No, it's alright, I'm fine." Jinyoung said to her, smiling.

"Please let me call you a cab, you'll get ill." The maid insisted.

"Thank you so much, but, I'll be fine." Jinyoung put his hand over hers on his elbow and ran his thumb over her hand, back and forth, twice.

The maid let him go on his way, and, the rain didn't explicitly bother Jinyoung, but, what he saw next did.

Jaebum was sitting out on a park bench, absolutely sodden in the pouring rain, with his coat gathered around him, smoking a cigar that Jinyoung knew he occasionally did when he was in Harold's company. The orange tip burned brightly, as did the silvery-white smoke floating upwardly from the tip. The falling raindrops didn't seem to disturb the cigar smoke, but, Jinyoung wondered how the cigar was still alight and how it was that the rain hadn't made it so wet that it was bending in half damply in the middle, crumbling away.

Jinyoung came and sat down on the bench beside Jaebum, and, the cold wetness on his backside and thighs was a bit of a shock, but, Jaebum didn't look in a great state at all.

"Are you okay?" Jinyoung asked him, head and shoulders bowed slightly, angled in Jaebum's direction but looking at his lace-up leather shoes while Jaebum stared ahead, his hand trembling slightly as he smoked the cigar.

"I've jsut been robbed for about thirty-thousand quid and there's not much I can do about it." Jaebum whispered. Jinyoung's eyes widened; he was just about to ask Jaebum how on earth it happened when Jaebum told him. "That black cunt - I sold him some paintings for twenty-five thousand quid in total...he then sold them to some Japanese cunt for fifty-five odd thousand quid..."

Jinyoung burst out laughing. Jaebum looked at him blankly. "Oh, no, mate, that's no good." Jinyoung managed, before he started laughing again. He was helpless with it, he couldn't help it. "I'm sorry, I..." He beamed at Jaebum. "Only earlier Harold was saying about French cunts."

Jaebum smiled a little bit, and he smiled crookedly. "I hope he gets cancer in his arsehole." He opined of the France-African Art Dealer.

Jinyoung chuckled on, and put his arm around Jaebum's shoulders. "Ah well, you're twenty-six and you're selling work that someone's happy to pay fifty-five odd thousand quid...be happy, mate, eh? Most other blokes don't have that to wake up to every morning."

Jaebum nodded shallowly. "I suppose so." He managed.

"Wow, this has really knocked you off your perch, hasn't it?" Jinyoung chuckled, gazing at Jaebum. Jaebum turned his head to the side.

"What is it?" He said to Jinyoung.

"Just looking at you." Jinyoung whispered. "You look shithouse."

The crooked smile came onto Jaebum's face again. 

"Told Harold we were going off home." He said.

"Best do it then?" Jinyoung commented. He stood up with Jaebum, and, as their was now traffic crowding up the road, they walked up the centre of it by one another, Jaebum flicking the still barely burning cigarette down the opening of a storm water drain.


End file.
